The Evolved Packet Core (EPC) is an all-IP mobile core network for the Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless communication standard. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has standardized the EPC starting from release 8. Most 4G mobile broadband (MBB) radio access networks (RANs) and some 3G RANs are supported by an EPC core network to provide end-to-end MBB service.
A typical EPC network deploys Packet Data Network Gateways (PDN-GW or PGW) at a few centrally located data centers. Typically, operators deploy PGWs in the same physical sites at which the operators access their Internet peering points, or in locations with reliable access to sites with Internet peering. This deployment model is quite effective for today's network traffic, in which the absolute majority of packets are addressed to/from the Internet and thus go through the Internet peering point. For more detail on EPC and PGW functions, see 3GPP TS 23.401 and 23.402.
An increasing share of network traffic is related to the enterprise and automation industry segments. Enterprise and industry segment users may want to deploy networks in which the data is locally terminated and sent only locally (e.g., between a sensor and a server) without accessing the Internet peering point. Locally terminated data may provide more security and increase delay performance (that is, reduce delay). As such, locally terminated data may also improve human-to-human communication, especially for delay sensitive applications such as real-time gaming applications. The current EPC network architecture that builds a hierarchy of serving gateways (SGWs) and PGWs may not be suitable for efficiently processing locally terminated data.